Sv: RE: [governance] RE: GAID

Thu Mar 8 11:30:56 EST 2007

Dear Michael,
I think some of your dots (I don´t really like bullits) are interesting to develop further.
Ann-Kristin----Ursprungligt meddelande----Från: gurstein at gmail.comDatum: Mar 6, 2007 9:19:28 PMTill: governance at lists.cpsr.org, gta at vancouvercommunity.net, sylvia.caras at gmail.com, wsis at ngocongo.orgÄrende: RE: [governance] RE: GAID

Hi Sylvia and all, 
I agree that Ann-Kristin's suggestion of partnering between CS and Silicon Valley is a good one although I would want to ensure that the partnering was done in such a way that it allowed for effective participation by and resourcing of the grassroots and community based practitioners--in that way, I think the benefits from such partnering would be most likely to flow in both directions.
Before there can be useful partnering at the grassroots level there is I think, a lot of preliminary work that would need to be done in finding mutually agreeable  strategies, a common language, mutually respectful working and decision making practices and so on. Not a lot of that currently exists but these are necessary pre-conditions for effective working relationships (and have been largely absent from ICT4D initiatives to this point...
Most appropriately the development of working relationships would be seen as emergent and iterative processes with appropriate assessment, feedback and jointly agreed upon frameworks for planning and implementation.  
Areas where I could see partnering and piloting between ICT4D practiioners and silicon valley folks quite immediately and practically would be in: 

user based (including gender and assistive sensitive) applications design for bottom up processes (Intel is doing that right now); 
software (linguistic) localization (as MS and Linux/Ubuntu are currently doing); 
strategy development for joint field testing of community based applications, training programs, implmentations etc.; 
the design of collaborative user (community) based evaluation/assessment systems for applications and implementations (some discussion going on in India);
the joint development of organizational processes and structures for system and application scaling-up; 
the development of strategies for responding to linguistic, cultural, geographical diversity/complexity in widely dispersed system applications; and so on.
There are enormous challenges (and opportunities) in responding to the complexity, variety and sheer scale of dispersed but integrated bottom-up applications.  It is these challenges (and opportunities) that are likely to drive the next round of system and applications development, certainly in LDC's but also I suspect in the OECD's as well, and it was the sensing of these openings that I think underlies Intel (and other)'s interest and the interest of those other folks in Silicon Valley who came along to the GAID meeting.
There has been a lot of discussion of the "bottom of the pyramid" hypothesis but I think that it is pretty well now accepted (as someone articulated at the GAID meeting) that Prahalad's approach of focussing on the grassroots simply as "markets" doesn't work. 
Rather the potential is there if (and oly if) the right kind of products, systems, applications, training, implementation strategies and so on can be developed that make sense and are useful for the next billion or two potential ICT users. 
(I'm also sorry I didn't have a chance to meet up with you and other of the CS folks attending particularly those attending only the second day... 
Best to all, 
MG 
Michael Gurstein, Ph.D. gurstein at gmail.com Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training Vancouver, BC CANADA v6z 2s1 tel: +1-604-602-0624 fax: +1-604-602-0624 http://www.communityinformatics.net 
-----Original Message----- From: Sylvia Caras [mailto:sylvia.caras at gmail.com] Sent: March 5, 2007 11:10 AM To: governance at lists.cpsr.org Subject: Re: [governance] RE: GAID 
I think Ann-Kristin's idea is the direction I would also suggest, that civil society partner with business/Silicon Valley.  My own sense is that global business interests are trumping States as actors and that GAID is a recognition of that 'multi-stakeholder' restructuring, as well as a cost-shifting attempt.
Michael, I'm sorry we didn't get to talk when we were both in the same place. 
Sylvia ____________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list:      governance at lists.cpsr.org To be removed from the list, send any message to:      governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org 
For all list information and functions, see:      http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance 
!DSPAM:2676,45ec6b54256857685206
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20070308/c4b748e0/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: message-footer.txt
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20070308/c4b748e0/attachment.txt>